Sadler Vaden
“Best Days” – single and video release September 9, 2020
One of the last in-person interviews I did before the tornadoes and Covid changed our world, was with Nashville guitarist and songwriter, Sadler Vaden. He had just released his third solo album, Anybody Out There? In addition to being a member of Grammy winner Jason Isbell’s band The 400 Unit, Vaden is a busy producer, studio musician and songwriter. We talked about the rare opportunity of downtime in between Isbell tours, allowing him to make the record and hit the road in support of it. The touring part didn’t exactly play out as planned, and this has certainly been a different kind of downtime that no one expected or wanted. I’ll never stop thanking artists for their art, especially in troubled times.
Today, Sadler Vaden released a new song called, “Best Days”, saying he wrote it during one of his worst: “I wrote ‘Best Days’ during one of my worst days. Nothing was going right and it was in the midst of the George Floyd protests. I started counting my blessings and realized that what I was going through was valid but nothing compared to what so many other folks are dealing with. ‘Best Days’ is essentially a prayer to myself but also a belief that I have. I choose to believe our best days are ahead of us and the time is now for that message.” Vaden self-produced, mixed, and engineered, “Best Days” along with frequent collaborator and fellow 400 Unit member, bassist Jimbo Hart. Multi-platinum producer Paul Ebersold helped with some additional engineering with mastering by Grammy Award-winner Richard Dodd.
It’s quite a treat to get see this accomplished player doing some acoustic finger picking in the live video, filmed at Nashville’s Carter Vintage Guitars.
Sadler Vaden, “Best Days”
Ana Lee is on middays at WMOT, and is also the host of The Local Brew Hour, which airs Sundays at 7am and Mondays at 7pm on 89.5 WMOT and wmot.org.
